Knowing and Wondering
by bahocean
Summary: Why does Peeta love Katniss so much? One author's opinion.


Summary: Three views on why Peeta loves Katniss. Yes, I know that's cryptic, but I think you'll like the story anyway!

A/N: I am better at one-shots than longer tales, and this is my first Hunger Games fic. Please let me know if I went too OOC, and also if there's something I should fix. I DO listen to constructive criticism, but run from flames. I don't have the marshmallows to roast them in!

Anyway, without further ado,

Knowing and Wondering

bahocean

KP HG KP HG KP HG

KPOV:

She wonders why he loves her so much.

Katniss Everdeen is no prize by anyone's standards, especially her own. She's selfish, ruthless when necessary, and has been battered by the winds of fate. She's sarcastic and cruel at times. She lost her innocent belief in the goodness of life when she lost her father, and has very little hope for the future. So she doesn't understand why Peeta Mellark loves her so much.

Maybe there's a streak of insanity running through him. There's certainly a lot of hopeful stubbornness there, to love someone for so long without that love being returned. He's too kind, too sweet, too annoying for his own good... or hers.

He's too good for her.

But most of the time, when she thinks about the baffling mystery of why Peeta Mellark loves Katniss Everdeen, she just doesn't get WHY he does.

She's just grateful he does.

KP HG KP HG KP HG KP HG

HPOV:

He wonders why the kid loves her so much.

Haymitch Abernathy has always been a bit (okay, a lot) cynical about the vagaries of life.

He has a few soft spots in that pickled heart of his; two of them are named Katniss and Peeta.

Doesn't mean he doesn't wonder WHY Peeta Mellark, who even now, could have his pick of girls, would want Katniss Everdeen. HAS wanted her for fourteen years. Sure, she's attractive, in a District 12 kinda way, but she is SO difficult to love in her prickly and sour moments.

Then again, so is Haymitch.

Haymitch knows a few things for sure when it comes to the young pair.

He knows both Peeta and Katniss better than they think he does.

He knows Peeta is fiercely loyal to those he cares for, hiding the fierceness beneath a amiable, good natured exterior. He is as yielding as an oak only when he feels he needs to be; otherwise, he is as bending as a reed. He has to be, to handle Katniss and her moods. But that is exactly what she needs, whether she knows it or not.

He knows that Katniss has walls ten feet thick, with a harsh and brusque shell covering a prickly undercoating. But he also knows that shell and undercoating are to protect a heart so loving, so vulnerable, that another blow just might shatter it completely. She doesn't trust even close to easily. He thinks, of the people left in her life, maybe three of them have the key to the very-well hidden door to those walls.

It honors him that he is one of them.

NOT that he'd ever tell HER that.

Haymitch knows that life is hard, with few patches of light and hope to illuminate the darkness.

He feels Peeta and Katniss are two of those patches, both broken and battered in their own ways, but still struggling valiantly on.

He hopes Katniss understands how rare a love like Peeta's is, and that Peeta understands that even more rare than Katniss's love, is the value of her TRUST.

He shakes his head at his introspection of the two kids, and takes another drink.

KP HG KP HG KP HG KP HG

He knows they wonder why he loves her so much.

Peeta Mellark has always been observant. Especially when it come to the love of his life. He knows how it looks to outsiders, his faithfulness and fidelity to a girl who barely knew he EXISTED until the Games. He almost (almost) wishes he could explain it to them. But somehow he knows the explanation will fall short of even HIS power of speech.

There's a lot of answers to the question. One is it's in his nature for his first love to be his last. In that way, he's a lot like his father.

Another answer is Peeta knows who he is. And who he is, has been, wants to be, includes his lifelong love for Katniss.

Peeta has always seen Katniss through the eyes of love, not the eyes of a crush. Even at five, he could tell that the little girl in the red plaid dress with her hair in two plaits would be necessary, and she has been. To the Capitol as someone to destroy, to the rebellion as a rallying force, and of course, to Peeta.

She doesn't see what he sees, of course. He KNOWS she's not perfect. He sees her moods, her brokenness, her inability to grasp the people that are gone and accept their losses. She's far from easy to love with all her defenses and battle scars. He's not blind.

That just makes him love her more.

It's easier to love a flesh and blood person than an image in one's mind. Before the Games, she was a phantom, a wisp of a girl, beautiful and tragic. During the Games, he got to know the REAL Katniss and found he liked her better that way. After the Games, the Quell, the hijacking, his love changed. It warped and morphed into something less fragile; more broken, but stronger for the breaks.

He knows Katniss inside out now. And he loves her, flaws and all.

Because she loves him so fiercely, flaws and all.

He figures that's as good a reason as any.

The End


End file.
